Junior Seau Found Dead in Home

I guess the Pro Bowl style of football is up next -- rather odd how the players from the leather helmet era didnt complain like this

No it's really not. Have you watched leather helmet era football? It's a night and day difference. Plus as has been mentioned, they weren't nearly the athletes they are today.
 
Not to mention that the medical technology didn't exist during the leather helmet era to identify CTE to begin with.

The fans who act like this is some kind of a toughness issue are absolute fools.

Not a toughness issue - as you can see its idiot coaches, like the ones in New Orleans, that promote dirty play - which in turn causes problems for everybody. Helmet to helmet hits and above the shoulder hits are being dealt with by the NFL now. The next thing (for the sake of fair play) should be the offensive player being penalized for going head first while running (not necessarily on a stacked line play) but on the open field, being down so low gives the defensive player no choice but to go head first for a tackle.
 
No it's really not. Have you watched leather helmet era football? It's a night and day difference. Plus as has been mentioned, they weren't nearly the athletes they are today.

How about the eggshell helmet era (50s) -- Also anyone ever notice college players today wear the pants above the knees -- why is that ? A fashion trend over the risk of a blown out knee or can they just run faster that way ?
 
Not a toughness issue - as you can see its idiot coaches, like the ones in New Orleans, that promote dirty play - which in turn causes problems for everybody. Helmet to helmet hits and above the shoulder hits are being dealt with by the NFL now. The next thing (for the sake of fair play) should be the offensive player being penalized for going head first while running (not necessarily on a stacked line play) but on the open field, being down so low gives the defensive player no choice but to go head first for a tackle.

Have you read any of the serious articles about this? The problem isn't "dirty play." The problem isn't even concussions, directly. The problem is that playing football -- hell, even practicing football -- subjects the brain to thousands of car crash-level subconcussive impacts, and those impacts have a cumulative effect.

The helmet to helmet stuff that Goodell has been pushing is just lawyer-friendly window dressing. The real issue is that it's probably going to be impossible to change football in a such away that guys don't constantly bang their heads around while playing it.
 
They also played a clip of the 911 call on ESPN tonight during halftime of the Grizz game
 
Not at the youth level there isn't. Or the HS level.

Plenty of kids smoke and drink in grade/HS.

In 50 years, we will still have people dying in coal mines, oil rigs, and steel mills

The NFL will adapt. Less games, bigger rosters,etc. But just because a few lawyers smell blood in the water does not mean they will win. Far too many powerful people with lots of $$ in the nfl
 
Not at the youth level there isn't. Or the HS level.

Or the college level, at least for the players who are at risk. How are schools going to ask unpaid players to sign a waiver to play football so that everybody can make money -- except the people whose brains are at risk? And even if they had the balls to ask, what percentage of college players think they have enough of a legitimate shot at NFL millions to sign it?

At some point HS and college football will have to morph into a much different "football light" version. The NFL will have to decide whether it wants to follow suit, or keep playing "real football" with waivers and such. If that's how they want to go, they'll have to start running their own developmental league that HS players with pro aspirations can go straight into instead of college. Regardless, it isn't going to be the same in 15 years at all.

every job has a risk - like it or do something else --- tired of the whining

As I said, the guys who think this is just a toughness issue are fools. It's fine to ask a 21 year old man who's making a lot of money to sign a waiver. What about the previous 10 years of his life that it took to get him to get to that point?
 
Or the college level, at least for the players who are at risk. How are schools going to ask unpaid players to sign a waiver to play football so that everybody can make money -- except the people whose brains are at risk? And even if they had the balls to ask, what percentage of college players think they have enough of a legitimate shot at NFL millions to sign it?

At some point HS and college football will have to morph into a much different "football light" version. The NFL will have to decide whether it wants to follow suit, or keep playing "real football" with waivers and such. If that's how they want to go, they'll have to start running their own developmental league that HS players with pro aspirations can go straight into instead of college. Regardless, it isn't going to be the same in 15 years at all.



As I said, the guys who think this is just a toughness issue are fools. It's fine to ask a 21 year old man who's making a lot of money to sign a waiver. What about the previous 10 years of his life that it took to get him to get to that point?

Whatever you say Nancy Grace :superman: Gimme a ring when it happens -- until then goodbye thread
 
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I hope they can fix the punishing hits. But one thing I don't care for is that you can only hit QBs in the torso, you can't drive, and you must release when they start going down. There's protecting players, and then there's protecting your product's biggest money makers to a point of absurdity.
 
I hope they can fix the punishing hits. But one thing I don't care for is that you can only hit QBs in the torso, you can't drive, and you must release when they start going down. There's protecting players, and then there's protecting your product's biggest money makers to a point of absurdity.

Although the NFL would never admit it, what they're doing about QBs is an entirely separate issue from the CTE stuff. That's about putting a virtual green jersey on QBs because they want Brady, Brees, Rogers, the Mannings, et al. to stay in the game, because the stars move the meter for casual fans.
 
Although the NFL would never admit it, what they're doing about QBs is an entirely separate issue from the CTE stuff. That's about putting a virtual green jersey on QBs because they want Brady, Brees, Rogers, the Mannings, et al. to stay in the game, because the stars move the meter for casual fans.
Almost too much truthiness for one post
 
NFL trumpets lifespan study to former players | ProFootballTalk

I think changes need to be made. I believe CTE is real and much more likely to be found in the brains of ex-football players. However, I do not believe football is going to die and think it's way too premature for us to be writing the epitaph of the game. The NFL is trying to make the game safer and these protocols will trickle all the way down to youth football, making it safer to play in the future.
 
NFL trumpets lifespan study to former players | ProFootballTalk

I think changes need to be made. I believe CTE is real and much more likely to be found in the brains of ex-football players. However, I do not believe football is going to die and think it's way too premature for us to be writing the epitaph of the game. The NFL is trying to make the game safer and these protocols will trickle all the way down to youth football, making it safer to play in the future.

There will always be something called football. The question is how similar it will be to what we think of as football in 2012. You can punish hits to the head; you can eliminate kickoffs; you can change a lot of the extraneous stuff. But how can you play something we recognize as football without the the linemen's heads absorbing such punishment on basically every play?
 
There will always be something called football. The question is how similar it will be to what we think of as football in 2012. You can punish hits to the head; you can eliminate kickoffs; you can change a lot of the extraneous stuff. But how can you play something we recognize as football without the the linemen's heads absorbing such punishment on basically every play?

As I've said multiple times, I believe football does cause CTE and think some things need to change.

However, there are tens of millions of men living normal lives after absorbing 1000s of hits playing football. Sure, everyone is worked up about Junior Seau, Ray Easterling, and Dave Duerson committing suicide, but we shouldn't let these gruesome examples distract us from the reality that the vast, vast majority of men who played football are capable of living perfectly normal, healthy, successful lives.

There are risks involved with football and every boy that wants to play must be made aware of those risks. The game can also be made a little safer. But I hardly think we should kill a sport that has given so many millions of people so much. We can't just live our lives in a bubble, afraid to never try anything. We're all going to die.

Junior Seau is the extreme exception, not the rule. Let's not overreact here.
 

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